


Please Don't Let Me Break This

by monopolizeme



Series: He Was Pointing At the Moon but I Was Looking At His Hand [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, quiet talks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 20:12:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monopolizeme/pseuds/monopolizeme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had never made it official, a thing, never labeled what it was exactly that was between them - that they were dating or fuck buddies or that they simply enjoyed each other’s company. They had never sat down and talked about it, had <i>The Talk</i>, and Stiles hadn’t really wanted to either. He didn’t know what his feelings were on the matter, other than that he liked being near Derek and liked that he didn’t see Derek touching anyone else the same way that Derek touched Stiles, and Derek didn’t seem interested in finding someone else to touch either.</p>
<p>So it had been a quiet thing, if anything at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please Don't Let Me Break This

They had never made it official, a _thing_ , never labeled what it was exactly that was between them - that they were dating or fuck buddies or that they simply enjoyed each other’s company. Stiles hadn’t let himself become too entangled with such thoughts because Derek didn’t seem to mind having Stiles near him, didn’t seem to mind when Stiles fastened himself against Derek’s back and mouthed at his throat when he thought Derek might be sleeping and unaware. Derek seemed to like touching Stiles too, curling his hand around the back of Stiles’ neck, sometimes absentmindedly and sometimes a little possessively, as if Derek was aware of what he was doing and wanted others to know about it too. They had never had sex, not completely, although Stiles liked blowing Derek whenever Derek would allow him, and Derek liked pushing Stiles into the cushions of his sofa and kissing Stiles until his lips were glistening red and raw.

But they had never sat down and talked about it, had _The Talk_ , and Stiles hadn’t really wanted to either. He didn’t know what his feelings were on the matter, other than that he liked being near Derek and liked that he didn’t see Derek touching anyone else the same way that Derek touched Stiles, and Derek didn’t seem interested in finding someone else to touch either.

So it had been a quiet thing, if anything at all.

Until one day Stiles had been sitting in the school cafeteria with Scott and Scott had made a snide remark about Derek, about his inability to keep his betas safe because Lydia had commented about Erica and Scott was clearly still resentful and guilt-ridden over her death.

And Stiles had snapped and told Scott to _shut up,_ that he couldn’t even find the balls to _belong_ to a pack and that Derek was always risking his own neck to save Scott’s stupid pathetic ass, and ranted off every situation in which Derek had made sure that Scott was safe and not _dead_.

Stiles hadn’t realized how angry he had been, the way his voice had risen sharply and too loud because when he had finally stopped, he had been on his feet, his chair knocked to the ground behind him;  and his fists were balled at his sides and he was _heaving_ , so hard that his chest hurt.

The cafeteria had been silent, too much so and that silence had crawled up his spine because there were _too many eyes_ on him.

Later, when Scott had found him sitting behind the bleachers, had settled down quietly beside Stiles, he had said in a careful tone, “So it’s a thing then, right? This… whatever this is, with Derek? It means something.”

And Stiles had replied quietly, “Yeah, I guess it is.”

It had been a strange revelation. Stiles always thought that finding out that you cared about a person in _that_ kind of way would hit him a little stronger, more suddenly, a powerful enlightening, in which the clouds would part and the sun would shine down on his face and everything would be so much brighter and clearer and maybe some kind of ridiculous skipping would be involved.

He had never thought it would result in a teenage outburst in the middle of a high school lunchroom, would settle upon his shoulders with heavy, tremulous knowledge. He thought he would have felt happier, instead he had felt scared, and he had sat behind the bleachers for an hour afterwards, breathing through his mouth, watching his shoes squirm in the grass as the whole world narrowed and spun around him.

Driving home after that had been horrible and Stiles’ fingers had gripped the steering wheel white-knuckled and sweaty and he had spent the night staring up at the ceiling, wondering how he was going to go about asking Derek if he wouldn’t mind settling down with a seventeen-year-old underage boy who still walked into doors and tripped over non-existing objects.

But Derek had never given him the chance to bring up anything, because the next day as Stiles had been sitting out on the porch, Derek had settled down beside him and said, "I heard about your little outburst in school the other day. Isaac told me.” Derek supplied when Stiles opened his mouth in question.

Stiles turned away, growing fidgety and wishing that for once Isaac was not so loyal to Derek.

“It – it was nothing.”

“You verbally attacked Scott.”

“You actually care about that?” Stiles had asked, somewhat sourly, because Derek these days was more often than not agitated about Scott as any kind of subject matter.

Derek shrugged, looked out into the yard.

“He’s your best friend.”

Stiles sighed.

“What was it about, Stiles?” Derek had said quietly, as if maybe this wasn’t something he was allowed to inquire about, which Stiles thought was a little late for, considering that Stiles had basically made himself a permanent fixture in Derek’s life these past few months.

“It was,” Stiles bit his lip, because he didn’t know how to talk about this, them, now that he realized that maybe he wanted to put a label on it. “I want you to belong to me.” He said finally, and that sounded terrible, it really did but it was the truth. And Stiles really wanted Derek to feel the same.

“What?”

Stiles gave Derek a pained expression.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know how to say that properly.” He lamented and then shook his head again because this should be easy, it should. Because everyone else could manage it and yet Stiles had no idea how. Only he had to try, because suddenly he _needed_ this more than he could understand. “I want us to belong to each other – only each other. I want to belong to you and I want it to be alright that I can say that you belong to me.”

“You want us to be a couple?” Derek said, and Stiles felt himself die a little in his chest, as if his lungs were withering against his ribcage because that sounded awful, a “couple” like two love-sick teenagers when that didn’t seem to fit them at all. They were not lovesick, Stiles didn’t think so, he just knew that it hurt in his chest whenever he thought of Derek _not being there_ , and he thought, maybe, that Derek might feel the same way about him. God, maybe he was lovesick after all.

“That sounds weird, doesn’t it?” Stiles said and then quailed a little. “We don’t have to do the whole dating thing – going out to restaurants or bowling alleys – that actually seems really weird and I can’t even imagine it – I just.”

Stiles closed his eyes. He closed his eyes and forced himself to get out, firmly, “I don’t want you belonging to anyone else.”

Stiles silently berated himself as the words broke into the air and seemed to just _hang_ there, mocking him in his absolute failure to sound articulate at a time when he really just needed _not_ to sound like an inexperienced seventeen-year-old.

Jesus, how did other people go about this? He knew that he had liked Lydia for _god too long_ and he knew that he had fumbled pathetically at asking her out – but that wasn’t what he was trying to do now. He didn’t even _know_ what he was trying to do and could he sound any weirder, _asking_ Derek to belong to him? He imagined that Derek had probably never considered himself belonging to anyone. Well, maybe once, with his family and to his Alpha and maybe Derek had wanted that, to belong to Laura.

But Stiles didn’t know if Derek had ever dated in the past, before everything went to hell and turned upside down and burned all around him. Maybe when he had been a teenager – but Stiles’ only knowledge of Derek as a teenager was Kate. And Stiles imagined that Derek didn’t want to consider having belonged to her at all, although maybe he did and that was the problem, maybe that was why Derek didn’t want to belong to anyone at all.

“I’m sorry,” said Stiles, feeling awkward and uncomfortable, as if his bones were too long and too pointy to fit properly in his skin. He didn’t know how to do this, how to have this conversation. He always imagined that he would have it with a girl, and that maybe she might be the one initiating this kind of talk and she would feel strange and weird about this, looking up at him with a nervous smile and Stiles would be the one calm and possibly amused. But this was different, he never imagined that he would have this conversation with _Derek_ , did not even know if their time together warranted such an assumption – maybe they did not belong to one another at all.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, fingers tightening around one another, tangling, as if they did not know how to be fingers and did not know how to relax and even link together properly. “I’m not very good at this. I don’t know – I don’t know if this even makes sense to have this conversation. We don’t have to belong to one another – maybe that’s stupid. Maybe we’re just friends and this is completely stupid.”

He sighed, his head hanging down, as if it were too heavy, weighed down by too many confusing thoughts that did not make sense in his head. Nothing seemed to fit together.

“Do you want me to belong to you?” asked Derek and the way he said it made Stiles feel terrible inside, as if Derek was something to own, a trophy of sorts, like a dog, or worse, like nothing at all.

“No-“ protested Stiles, too quickly, his head snapping up. He faltered. “I mean – I don’t mean it like- like you’re something to _own_. I don’t mean that as if you’re an animal, Derek, god no nothing like that, you _know_ that. And I don’t mean it as in some kind of dominance, like I’m trying to join up higher in the ranks or overcome you as an Alpha or Beta – I’m human though so I couldn’t even do that if I wanted to-“ He made a noise in the back of his throat, pained and confused and he _didn’t know how to do this_.

Derek raised his eyebrows, faintly. He wasn’t trying to quiet Stiles or make him feel stupid but Stiles did anyway. He didn’t know how to make his mouth work in the way that he needed it to.

“I just meant it like, if there was someone else, you know? Someone else who wanted you for their own – romantically or, I don’t know, even physically. Just – if you, if you wouldn’t mind – you could, not.” He ended pathetically. That didn’t make any sense at all and he shook his head in frustration. “Just – if you wouldn’t mind, we could, belong to each other. Just us. Without anyone else.”

Derek seemed to be thinking about it, the way his eyes shifted down slightly, his face unreadable but Stiles knew that Derek was thinking, quietly, in his own head where it was probably so much more sensible than in Stiles’ own chaotic, congested state.

“I would belong to you?” Derek asked.

Stiles swallowed, but nodded. “Yes, but not just to me – I mean, I would… belong to you too. Equally.”

Derek nodded distantly, but it was not a _Yes_.

Stiles pressed his lips together, bit at the corner of his mouth restlessly.

“I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. But – I don’t know. I get so damn protective of you, like I did when Scott said those things, and I’m not even sure where that comes from. And you seem really protective of me too but maybe that’s just an Alpha thing and I’m only human and you think it is because I cannot take care of myself, like the rest of you can.”

Derek’s eyes flickered up at him at that.

“You’re not weak, Stiles.” He said quietly. “No one thinks that.”

Stiles shook his head, because this was not about _that_. He had made a ruckus about it in the past, often, way too much and he knew that it annoyed everyone when he went off about not being the weak human but – this wasn’t _about_ that.

“Derek-“ he said, but he didn’t know how to finish that sentence. He didn’t know how to make Derek _understand_.

“I wouldn’t mind.” said Derek and Stiles stared at him.

“What?”

Derek looked like he was still mulling it over and he said, slowly, as if testing out the words, “I wouldn’t mind it. Belonging to you. If you’d like that. I wouldn’t mind saying that, if it were you.”

Stiles stared at Derek like he had just offered to take him into a den of werewolves with nothing but pepper spray. And that was ridiculous, really, because _Stiles_ had been the who started this whole embarrassing discussion and now that Derek had actually said _yes_ , had actually stayed and listened to Stiles’ pathetic rambling, Stiles was making it as if Derek was the absurd one in this equation.

His mouth opened and there was a chance that a slightly too-high pitched sound emitted from his throat.

Derek raised his brows slightly, giving Stiles a sidelong glance. But there was something different about his eyes, unfamiliar, the corners tinged in what Stiles thought, breathlessly, might have been a trace of a smile.

_Oh god._

“Are you serious?” Stiles whispered.

And Derek nodded, his mouth turning up slightly and _ohmygod_ , that was definite pleasure there. Derek was actually _happy_ about this, or pleased, or not terribly disgruntled and that at least was good. That was very good. That was fucking _brilliant_.

Stiles’ mouth split into a grin, an utterly ridiculous smile that pulled at his cheeks and probably made his face look stupidly disfigured and he really needed to stop that if he did not want Derek to change his mind about the whole matter right now.

“Ah, okay, yeah that’s, really good,” he finished quietly, turning his face away. He studied his hands now tucked between his knees.

“Yeah?” Derek asked softly, and his mouth was incredibly close to Stiles’ ear when he said that. Stiles could feel the subtle press of heat against his shoulder, his heart a rapid erratic pulse in his chest.

Stiles nodded, still not quite able to bring himself to meet Derek’s eyes, just in case he was doing that half-smiling thing again which Stiles really could not handle at that moment.

“Yeah.”

Derek didn’t move his hand away when Stiles let the back of his fingers brush against his, the slightest pressure of knuckles fitting against one another and joining.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! The road trip shall commence within the next chapter. :)


End file.
